American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 27, 1481-1485, Copyright © 1974 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.

Opportunistic infections in colon carcinoma

¹ From the Division of Infectious Diseases, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine of the City University of New York, 100th Street and Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10029

Opportunistic infections due to protozoan or fungal agents do not occur in patients with colorectal carcinoma. Nevertheless these subjects may become infected with members of the normal bacterial flora of the gut which are provided with a site for penetration of the colonic mucosal barrier by the invasive or necrotizing tumor. Bacteroides sepsis, Clostridium septicum and other clostridial infections (in the absence of deep traumatic lesions), and left perinephric abscess caused by coliforms and fecal streptococci appear to be characteristic associations with colonic neoplasia. In the absence of a known colonic lesion, diagnostic workup should be performed in all such patients. Barium enema would similarly be indicated in older patients with bacterial endocarditis in whom the portal of entry of the organism was not known.

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